The Social Cancer, by José Rizal - Home

CHAPTER XXXV 169
young man's skin. No one will forgive him for having been afraid of him. Worse and worse, ahem!"
"Do you think so?" asked Capitan Basilio curiously.
"I hope," said Don Filipo, exchanging a look with the latter, "that the people won't desert him. We must keep
in mind what his family has done and what he is trying to do now. And if, as may happen, the people, being
intimidated, are silent, his friends--"
"But, gentlemen," interrupted the gobernadorcillo, "what can we do? What can the people do? Happen what
will, the friars are always right!"
"They are always right because we always allow them to be," answered Don Filipo impatiently, putting
double stress on the italicized word. "Let us be right once and then we'll talk."
The gobernadorcillo scratched his head and stared at the roof while he replied in a sour tone, "Ay! the heat of
the blood! You don't seem to realize yet what country we're in, you don't know your countrymen. The friars
are rich and united, while we are divided and poor. Yes, try to defend yourself and you'll see how the people
will leave you in the lurch."
"Yes!" exclaimed Don Filipo bitterly. "That will happen as long as you think that way, as long as fear and
prudence are synonyms. More attention is paid to a possible evil than to a necessary good. At once fear, and
not confidence, presents itself; each one thinks only of himself, no one thinks of the rest, and therefore we are
all weak!"
"Well then, think of others before yourself and you'll see how they'll leave you in the lurch. Don't you know
the proverb, 'Charity begins at home'?"
"You had better say," replied the exasperated teniente-mayor, "that cowardice begins in selfishness and ends
in shame! This very day I'm going to hand in my resignation to the alcalde. I'm tired of passing for a joke
without being useful to anybody. Good-by!"
The women had opinions of still another kind.
"Ay!" sighed one woman of kindly expression. "The young men are always so! If his good mother were alive,
what would she say? When I think that the like may happen to my son, who has a violent temper, I almost
envy his dead mother. I should die of grief!"
"Well, I shouldn't," replied another. "It wouldn't cause me any shame if such a thing should happen to my two
sons."
"What are you saying, Capitana Maria!" exclaimed the first, clasping her hands.
"It pleases me to see a son defend the memory of his parents, Capitana Tinay. What would you say if some
day when you were a widow you heard your husband spoken ill of and your son Antonio should hang his head
and remain silent?"
"I would deny him my blessing!" exclaimed a third, Sister Rufa, "but--"
"Deny him my blessing, never!" interrupted the kind Capitana Tinay. "A mother ought not to say that! But I
don't know what I should do--I don't know--I believe I'd die--but I shouldn't want to see him again. But what
do you think about it, Capitana Maria?"